Bronx neighbors branded the illegal immigrant shot by ICE “trash” after Mayor Zohran Mamdani called him a New Yorker, while federal officials defended agents who fired when he rammed their vehicles.
Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican national, was wounded in the neck Thursday in the Bronx when ICE officers opened fire after he allegedly used his SUV as a weapon during a targeted enforcement stop. The graze wound was not life-threatening. A five-year-old child was inside the car and was unharmed.
Breitbart News reported that neighbors rejected Mayor Mamdani’s description of Belgal as one of their own, and that federal authorities had been looking into his potential gang ties linked to a prior Customs and Border Protection officer shooting.
Belgal is believed to have entered the United States illegally in 2022. Court records cited in reporting show a record that includes a 2023 gunpoint robbery and a 2025 drug conviction. He was later booked into MDC-Brooklyn after transport from ICE custody in Newark, New Jersey.
On Thursday evening, Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted that Belgal was a “New Yorker” and claimed residents wanted ICE out of the area. The framing landed poorly with people living with the consequences of street crime.
Migdalia Martinez, a Bronx mother whose 12-year-old son Jacob Freytas was killed in gangland crossfire while riding his bike in July in the Mt. Eden area, told reporters she disagreed with the mayor.
"I don’t consider him a New Yorker. The only thing I do consider him as is trash, nothing else but trash. And I don’t consider New York, my home, as trash."
Neighbor Mora Rodriguez was just as direct when she spoke about the case and the pattern of release.
"Absolutely not. That’s one of the reasons I think we should vote blue out. What’s going on with the legal system, the jail, letting these people go after they have a whole list of convictions? This is a criminal. Why would you let this person out? These judges are very radical. We gotta vote red. That’s what I can say to you."
Those reactions stand in sharp contrast to City Hall’s instinct to cast an illegal immigrant with a lengthy record as a local in good standing, a theme that has also surfaced in coverage of Mamdani’s comments drawing DHS pushback after the same Bronx shooting.
The New York Post reported that ICE officials described Belgal accelerating into government vehicles and driving toward officers in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx. Senior ICE official Marcos Charles said agents believed their lives and the public were at risk.
"He then accelerated his vehicle, smashing into two of our government ICE vehicles and then weaponized his vehicle and proceeded to accelerate, going towards other officers."
Charles added that officers “using their training and believing that their life and the life of the partners and the general public were in danger... fired weapons.” DHS officials said they were investigating Belgal’s potential involvement with the Trinitarios gang, a group well-known in the Mt. Eden area and believed by federal authorities to have been involved in a 2025 CBP officer shooting.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin rejected the idea that outrage should focus on the agents. He noted officers did not know a child was in the car and put responsibility on the driver who chose to ram vehicles.
"We weren’t aware the child was in the car, I can tell you that. But do you know who was? Oscar. Oscar knew he had a child in his car. Oscar chose to accelerate at a high rate of speed and ram two different vehicles as it appears he was going towards officers. And so the public outcry should also be towards this criminal, this thug, this gangbanger, this possible murderer; the outrage should be with him for endangering the five year old."
Mullin also tied the environment to sanctuary policy, saying sanctuary politicians create conditions where criminal activity thrives rather than public safety. He said the agency will not pause efforts to take criminal migrants into custody.
Just The News reported that Belgal had been arrested twice in three years and was convicted in April 2025 for selling fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine, receiving five years of probation. Additional New York charges cited in coverage include grand larceny, theft, robbery, and possession of a deadly weapon, along with a pending DHS detainer.
Democrat-run state bail and sanctuary rules, according to court records summarized in reporting, had left him free to move about despite the gunpoint robbery and later drug case. That revolving-door pattern is what neighbors like Rodriguez pointed to when they asked why someone with a long list of convictions was back on the street.
After the shooting, Belgal was treated and taken into federal custody. Fox News reported that U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken blocked his removal or transfer outside the New York and New Jersey districts without a court order while a detention challenge proceeds. Immigration advocates had filed a petition. Belgal was booked into MDC-Brooklyn on Friday after transport from Newark, a federal prosecutor said. Reporting also noted he still had a bullet in his body after treatment.
Advocacy groups pushed a different line. Harold Solis of Make the Road New York argued it was not acceptable to shoot a father with his son in the back seat, regardless of criminal history. Anti-ICE protests followed in New York City even as federal officials maintained the officers acted in self-defense.
The same shooting quickly became a political flashpoint, including demands for probes and blame-shifting that mirrored earlier fights over enforcement, much like the scrutiny captured when Ocasio-Cortez called for an investigation into the Bronx operation.
Belgal’s path, from illegal entry, to armed robbery, to a fentanyl-heroin-cocaine conviction and probation, to a stop that ended with a rammed ICE vehicle, shows how repeated contacts with the system failed to keep him off the street. Mullin’s point about sanctuary cities was not abstract: local and state choices limited the tools available to remove someone already flagged by federal authorities.
Martinez’s loss of her 12-year-old son in gang crossfire gives the neighbors’ anger a concrete face. They are the ones living with the results when gang activity and repeat offenders cycle through the courts. Calling the man who accelerated toward officers with a child in the car a “New Yorker” may fit a political script. It does not match what residents said when asked who belongs in their community.
Mamdani has drawn heat on other high-profile statements as well, including the controversy around an Oct. 7 remark that sparked backlash, underscoring a pattern of rhetoric that often lands far from the concerns of crime victims and taxpayers.
Federal agents, by contrast, described a narrow decision under threat: a driver who refused orders, smashed into government vehicles, and drove at officers. They fired. The child survived. The suspect survived. The record that brought ICE to his door remains.
Similar enforcement cases continue to surface nationwide, including when ICE took custody of another illegal immigrant after public attention forced the issue into the open.
When city leaders rush to claim violent illegal immigrants as “New Yorkers” while parents who buried children reject the label, voters can see which side is protecting the neighborhood and which side is protecting a narrative.
